Upon my return from my wine-tasting vacation, I reread Peter May’s The Critic, a mystery set in France about a wine critic drowned in a vat of wine. Although only adequate from a whodunnit perspective, May’s detailed descriptions of the wine making process were highly enjoyable now that I had actually seen them.
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Starting new novel today and having it in large print is a real bonus (after reading a book in much smaller print).
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Yes I find the difference with large print to be quite stark.
I’m pretty much forced to order books online as selection in local bookstores is quite dire. The difficulty with ordering online is that it’s very hard to discover how small the print actually is. So I now always opt for the large print edition if it’s available. Unfortunately, not all books are available in this format.
Have you considered a Kindle or Kobo.
Both have the ability to enlarge the script and even warm the page tone.
I am in another of my reading previously read paper book phases. These usually occur when Amazon have managed to upset me with another World domination scheme.
E books can be purchased quite economically if you are watchful and if you need colour an I pad or similar is usually to hand.
I’ve missed a couple, so even a better value.
Finished recently…
Dennis Lehane - Small Mercies
Recently finished this Dennis Lehane novel. I was interested since it was based in the neighborhood where I was born and raised. It also covered the time period when I had just returned to Boston from my four year enlistment in the Marine Corps and all hell was about to break loose with the enforcement of the court decree to desegregate the Boston Schools. This included the forced busing of children to different neighborhoods all over the city. A nice piece of fiction which captures the character and mood of the citizens during this period of time.
Dennis has also written, ‘Mystic River,’ Gone Baby Gone,’ ‘Shutter Island,’ and recently the ‘Black Bird’ series on Apple TV.
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I tend to go for online too with the occasional foray into a bookshop. Always hardback as paperback font sizes are predictably small. I can do smaller than large print but it takes an age. A book which others will clear on a day or several might take me weeks or months.
And no… I didn’t really enjoy that. A book of dislikable characters. So, onto this, wguch siunds gar more interesting.
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Had to study Hardy for my A’Level English Lit back in the 80’s…put me off for life!
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Started with this one…
" Mass radicalisation - How the centre is falling prey to extremists | Why our democracy is under threat as never before"
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I have an old Kindle Paperwhite but the problem with enlarged fonts on an ebook is that it results in very few lines per screen, which really reduces the reading experience for me. I can tolerate this with shorter novels, but with long or complicated novels I much prefer a physical book.
Might get a larger ebook reader if I can find one I like that isn’t too expensive.
I have had various Kindles, including a relatively recent Paperwhite. I haven’t found the reading experience as enjoyable for some reason.
I now mostly read via the Kindle App on my iPad, which I’ve always preferred to the Kindles, or a physical book.
Reading a real book at night is difficult without a light however and keeping SWMBO awake is not advisable…
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The problem with Kindles and their ilk is that they really don’t work for a huge range of visual impairments. Larger text reduces the word count per page but is done automatically rather than by someone looking at layout, So as well as there being less on the page the line breaks are often unnatural and make reading harder.
The backlit nature of such things also means that no amount of colour warming can help anyone with light sensitivity. They can quickly become exhausting to use.
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That is a very profound comment , I wonder if all the deconstruction that is done in academia is not counter productive in later life . I.e should English literature at A level put you off reading in later life
Absolute opposite for me. Lifelong love of Shakespeare and his expressive language was started by O level English Lit ( along with a general love of live theatre).
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I went thru both stages , after school I would have thought it mad to attend a Shakespeare play and hadn’t been to the theatre for around twenty years . Then I read the reviews for Juliet Stephenson in Death And The Maiden , went and have loved serious theatre ever since - especially Shakespeare and er Jacobean tragedy (if half the cast are alive at the end, I consider it a failure)
It’s the "Gradgrind effect " of some English classes that kills the joy of good books , if you are lucky you enjoy it or come back to it . Returning to Hardy , we were lucky we read “Far From The Madding Crowd” , glad to have avoided poor Tess
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